2. Chapter 2 #4
“That would almost sound like wit,” he said, “if your performance tonight had not been so embarrassingly transparent.”
Embarrassingly.
Well. There was a word a woman could build a murder on.
I reached the bar and set my tray down harder than intended. Crystal rattled. Kyra’s gaze flicked from me to him, taking in my flushed face, his rigid posture, the whole nasty picture at once.
I planted both hands on the polished black surface and willed myself not to whip around and tell him exactly what he could do with his opinions.
He didn’t stop.
“Do you imagine,” he asked behind me, each word clipped to a finer edge, “that this place exists for your personal awakening? That because you possess any number of tiny skirts and a dazzling smile, the rules do not apply to you?”
I turned then because I couldn’t not.
The room behind him went on in shadows and velvet and low sin.
Up close, the scar near his right eye had drawn tight.
His eyes looked darker here, but the amber in them flashed when the backbar light struck.
He was furious, yes. But there was something else under it still, something that only made this worse because I had seen its shape already and now he was trying to bury it under my skin.
“Why do you care?” I asked.
I meant to say it stronger. It came out softer, rougher, too honest by half.
That stopped him.
Only for a beat, but long enough for me to see I’d landed somewhere he hadn’t wanted me near.
Then his mouth hardened. “I care about standards.”
Bullshit.
It sat there between us, too obvious to dignify.
Before I could decide whether to say that out loud, Kyra set down the glass she’d been polishing with a precise little click that cut cleaner than shouting might have.
“She is the best person I have on this floor in every aspect, Your Highness,” she said, her voice quiet and carrying that faint Greek lilt she mostly kept tucked away, “and I would appreciate it if you did not berate my server at the bar. If you have a concern, take it up with Bodhan.”
The use of his title should have sounded respectful. Somehow it didn’t. It sounded like a line painted on the ground.
Nikolay turned his head toward her. Kyra did not lower her eyes.
I had liked her before. In that moment, I would’ve helped her hide a body.
The name Bodhan had barely settled in the air before a new presence moved in at Nikolay’s shoulder.
I hadn’t seen him approach. Maybe he’d been nearby already, maybe he’d developed some sixth sense for family disasters after living with them this long.
Bohdan simply materialized there in dark silk and expensive menace, expression smooth enough to pass for calm if you didn’t know better.
He said nothing to me.
He just closed one hand around Nikolay’s arm—not rough, not public enough to make a spectacle, but firm in a way that made plain this was no suggestion—and applied the smallest amount of pressure.
Nikolay went still.
For one second I thought he might resist just on principle. The air around the three of us tightened. Then he looked at Bohdan; something unreadable passed between them, and he let himself be turned.
Bohdan guided him away from the bar without a single wasted word.
I watched them go.
Nikolay didn’t look back.
Good, I thought savagely. Better if he didn’t.
Only when they were swallowed by the crowd did I realize how hard I was gripping the edge of the bar. My knuckles had gone white against the black lacquer. My shoulders were halfway to my ears. My chest felt scraped out.
Kyra slid a glass of water toward me.
I looked at it, then at her.
“You breathe now,” she said.
A laugh nearly burst out of me, sharp and humorless. “That obvious?”
“Yes.”
I took the water and drank half of it in one gulp. The cold helped. Not much. Enough.
Behind my ribs, fury tangled itself up with humiliation until I could hardly separate them.
I was mad at him for stalking over here like I belonged under his judgment.
Mad at the way he’d looked at me across the room with all that naked hunger and then tried to flay me for having a body that answered.
Mad at every word he’d chosen because they had been chosen to cut and because damn him, they had.
But the part that really burned was meaner than that.
I was angrier at myself.
At the weak little thread inside me that had thrilled when I found him watching. At the stupid, traitorous piece of me that had wanted him to keep looking. Wanted him to cross the room for a different reason. Wanted—God help me—to know what he’d do if he ever stopped hating me enough to touch me.
I set the water down carefully before I shattered the glass.
No.
Absolutely not.
I rolled my shoulders back, reached for my tray, and let the movement settle me into myself again. Work. Posture. Breath. The practical things. The things no man got to take from me because he was beautiful and damaged and too damn used to making his discomfort everyone else’s burden.
If Nikolay Kozlov wanted a fight, then fine.
I was made from Texas stock, not porcelain.
And I was done standing still for him.